I was wondering when do put seedlings under the light? I heard you had to place them under right when they break the soil? Also, if the seedling is still crooked do i wait to put them under the lights or can I just place them under?:h ump:

put them under a few Daylight CFLs until they have 5 sets of leaves then put them under a MH or a HPS.

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i think my method is perfect.

use a real 1'x1'? paper towel that is usually located in the kitchen.

fold it in half, place seeds inside, use slightly warmer than room temperature (+5-10 degrees, trust me)...

soak a cloth towel in the same warm or even warmer water, squeeze most of the water out but leave it nice moist. i just keep it as moist as possible without dripping.

now place the first paper towel on the second cloth towel, then place the warm water (+5-10 degrees) in the palm of your hand and drip it over the already wet paper and cloth towel.

the step above makes sure everything is making contact.

now place the towels is a completely dark drawer, cabinet, box, whatever, try to keep it at 65-75 degrees and within 24 hours they should be cracked with the white root coming out. As long as there is some root showing out of the seed, the seed is ready to be transplanted to soil.

have a good soil mix, use your finger and poke into the soil 1 inch.

*when you place the seeds in the soil, it doesnt matter what direction you place it in. the next 24 hour period in weak lighting will allow the plant to search for proper lighting and water.

one thing special thing i learned. during the next 24 hour period, main roots will grow and shoot out like no other. in 24 hours, roots should shoot straight down to the bottom of any planting container/pot. this idea is key as roots are crucial foundations to the plant, and by shooting straight down the entire container, it makes sure the plant can attain water at any depth of the container. i learned this the hard way because sometimes my vegetation on top grew too fast for the roots and as a result plants were topping over. i believe this tiny issue is only for 24/7 vegetation people. because any off time will allow the roots to grow, otherwise it's too busy with the photosynthesis of the top vegetation? haha

when transplanting the seed, i use a plastic bag over my hand to make sure nothing on me can shock the seed. hopefully you gloves or something, because using just a bag can get tricky since the seed is so tiny.

now drop the seed in, cover it up, water it lightly so that everything is cohesive.

now just place it in the light! i try to save light by putting the sprouting seeds slightly outside of my large mh lights. meaning the light rays are not directly hitting the surface, it's simply bumming random light outside of it's efficient range, and it works great for me. within 24 hours, from 1 inch deep in the soil, it will be tall enough and ready to move to the normal mh light.

once it shows the first 2 leaves, it's ready to go grow!

recap: within 48 hours, you should be able to place your seedlings into normal growing. if you don't know what height to place it at, just always go much lower than you think, then adjust. by having the light so far away, the plant stretches immediately to try and find light.

one time i left the seedlings under the weak light for too long, instead of the 24 hours (second 24 hour period of my method), and instead of moving them to the full growth light at around 2 inches, the sproutings went up to 6 inches! it's just searching like no other.

without proper lighting, the plant will not grow. I've been testing differently lightings, and it's amazing what typeof difference it makes.

so yea..this is obviously more than what you wanted, but i apologize, i was lifted when* i started this.

which means it's time... =)

Once they have popped they are ready for light just be very careful planting in the medium as to not break the tap root I normally use a pair of sterilized tweezers and place them gently with the tap root facing down in the soil and barely cover the seedling with dirt as to not have any trouble breaking the surface....6500k daylight cfls or fluro tubes are the best....Oh and superthrive works wonders if u can buy it do so.....goodluck

hi there, my seedling has just popped out the soil and im using a 400w hps on it. if you use an hps make sure its far enough away so not to burn the seedlings. if you are using cfl's get them as close as you can within 2-4 inches as they dont give out much heat.

hustla

Why not just put them under the MH light once they reach the top of the humidity dome? That's what I did. They were around 6" tall when I put them in the buckets and placed them under 400W MH.

As soon as I see taproot, I put them in my hydro system under 1000w of light. I know you ain't supposed to but i'm just letting you know what i do. the plants seem to like it (otherwise i wouldn't do it)

hi porchmonkey, i dont have a mh light just the hps. i got some 125w cfl's but im going all hps this time.

hustla

just read my post above, it has to be one of the quickest and easiest methods.

yeah, I read you can use HPS throughout your entire grow, just make sure you have the correct nutrients and hours of light/day according to stage of growth (flower/veg/transition, etc.). Here's some more info from another reputable source: this was a response to my question of how to get the correct lighting for both mothers and clones:

You don't need to buy another ballast. For cuttings, a small fluorescent light is preferable until they show roots. Once rooted, though, you can put them under high pressure sodium light. Keep lights on 18 hours a day and give them vegetative nutrients and your plants will be fine.

In general, plants like both blue (metal halide) and red/orange (HPS) at all stages of growth. They prefer more blues in vegetative and more red/orange in flowering. The best bulbs are usually balanced spectrum, which means that a metal halide, such as the Agrosun Gold, will be about 70% blue and 30% red. Conversely, the Hortilux Super HPS, will be about 70% red and 30% blue.

At this point, a metal halide bulb for vegetative would be nice to have, but not necessary. If you have a digital ballast or a switchable magnetic style, you can use any metal halide bulb with your current ballast. If your ballast is strictly HPS, you can still create a metal halide spectrum with a conversion bulb. Any way you go, you'd only need a bulb.

That being said, I would not put cuttings and flowering plants under the same flowering light. Light spectrum isn't the issue so much as hours per day. Most flowering plants prefer more darkness (12 hours) than your cutting prefer. Isolate these two stages so that your cuttings can have a longer light cycle.

Use fluorescent lighting for 18 hours a day to vegetate your plants. Our tomato varieties in the store don't seem to stretch under fluorescents until their at least nine inches tall or so. We keep the lights 2-4 inches above the canopy and slowly raise them to create a stockier plant before flowering.

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